Tonight (March 15th) the 2010 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame will induct ABBA, Genesis, Jimmy Cliff, the Hollies, the Stooges, music mogul David Geffen, along with songwriters Jeff Barry & Ellie Greenwich, Barry Mann & Cynthia Weil, Jesse Stone, Mort Shuman, and Otis Blackwell.

Artists are eligible for induction 25 years after their debut release. For every handful of acts that enter the Rock Hall each year, there are dozens that never make it past the final ballot and hundreds more who aren't even in the running.

Daryl Hall was asked if he's upset with the fact that he and John Oates have been eligible for induction since 1997 and have been passed over year after year: "Bottom line; no. But other bottom line if you wanna look at two bottom lines -- everything is perception. Most people already think that we're already in it and they can't believe it when they say we're not. What my peers think and what my audience thinks matters to me. I'd rather have Al Green or Paul McCartney come up to me and say they love my music than (Rolling Stone publisher and Rock Hall chairman) Jann Wenner saying nothing about me. Y'know what I mean? If he wants to put me in fine. Maybe I'll show up."

Despite "The Twist" being one of the biggest and most influential hits of the rock era, Chubby Checker, who has been eligible since the Rock Hall's inaugural in 1986, is resigned to the fact that he won't be inducted: "It's not a big deal. I mean, it's not completed without me anyway. I just like to talk about what we've done in the music business and what is still being done as a result of our being in the music industry and that will just put the Hall of Fame to shame. We don't need to talk about them. It's no sense. The Hall is not completed without Chubby Checker. What we've done is so incredible. It's okay."

Three Dog Night has been eligible for induction since 1993. Cofounder Chuck Negron says they've consistently been passed over simply because the group didn't write their biggest hits: "It's a very strange thing. For some reason Three Dog Night has been stuck with this stigma that we weren't innovative and that's mind-boggling. Based all on the fact that we didn't write (our own material). We changed the music . . . the landscape of the touring business, we created stadium tours. And, you know, if you're going to talk about writing, Elvis Presley didn't write a song."

Chicago cofounder and trumpeter Lee Loughnane (pronounced: Lock-nee) takes it in stride that, despite being eligible since 1994, the band has yet to be inducted: "We've met all the criteria and that's just another one that we've passed. If they make up any more, we've already surpassed those all ones. So if we make it into the Hall of Fame, it's great. If not, we're still workin' and havin' fun at it. And, you know, the Hall of Fame will always be there. I think. I know we will (laughs)." )

Eric Carmen says that although the Raspberries have long been cited as "power pop" innovators and have been eligible for induction since 1997, they lack the political clout to get into the Rock Hall: "Having been in the music business now for 35 years, or whatever it is, and having had situations where I've bumped into Jann Wenner and some of the powers that be over there, there is so much politics involved in anybody actually getting into the Rock Hall."

There have been several times during the Rock Hall's induction ceremonies that band members have been inducted but due to politics and bad blood between group members are forced to sit on the sidelines during the inductees' performances.

The first occurrence took place in 1993 when John Fogerty refused to share the stage with Creedence Clearwater Revival members Stu Cook and Doug Clifford: "(Doug Clifford) That was our night too. For the band. The band was inducted. And to have that happen, all of our children were there, including Tom's son who was going to fill in for his dad (Tom Fogerty). And then when we called John on it, he says, 'I don't like you. I won't play with you. You didn't help me get out of my contract 25 years ago.' What?! (Stu Cook) You're the guy who signed it without a lawyer! (Doug Clifford) Yeah. Well."

In 2006 ousted Blondie guitarist Frank Infante tried to embarrass Debbie Harry and the other members into letting him and former bassist Nigel Harrison perform with the group, Harry made it clear they weren't welcome and afterwards said it was a tense situation: "I actually sort of expected much worse, if the truth must be known. I don't know if there's any way to really handle a situation like that. There's been, you know, some bad feeling for a long time -- there's been lawsuits -- and, you know, it's a bad feeling, really."

Stu Cook says that bad scenes between former bandmates will probably continue to happen as long as the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame forces estranged musicians back together under the spotlight: "Creedence (Clearwater Revival), Blondie, Sly (and the Family Stone), you know all these misadventures that the Hall has had trying to push their agenda . . . Somebody's going to get hurt, you know their feelings hurt or there's going to be some kind of a scene. I guess they always thought that they could control it. I don't know, our induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame wasn't very satisfying, needless to say."

The 25th annual Rock Hall ceremony is set to take place tonight (March 15th) at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York City and will air live at 8:30 p.m. ET on Fuse TV.

Elton John and partner David Furnish revealed that the suicide of one of Elton's former lovers inspired them to co-produce the new Broadway play Next Fall. The show, by playwright Geoffrey Nauffts, opened on March 11th at New York's Helen Hayes Theatre. The story is based on "two gay men and the effect of their religious beliefs on their relationship."

Elton spoke about his former lover, whom he didn't name, explaining to The Sunday Telegraph that the conflicts regarding his religion and his homosexuality ultimately drew him to the edge: "Years back I had a relationship, and I had absolutely no idea in the world he was going to do this. . . he threw himself under a truck. . . There was so much grief."

Furnish went on to say, "It's the right timing for this (play). The religious divide between right and left has gotten wider, and so the rights of gay people never got back to where it was heading."

The couple has extensive experience on the Great White Way, with Elton writing the score to both The Lion King and Billy Elliot: The Musical -- for which Furnish was the executive producer.

Happy Birthday to the Beach Boys' Mike Love, who turns 69 today (March 15th)! Love, who formed the group in 1961 with his first cousins Brian, Dennis, and Carl Wilson, and with friends David Marks and Al Jardine, went on to co-write most of the group's major hits with Brian Wilson.

Love, who has often stated that his upbeat lyrics served as a direct contrast to Wilson's intricate harmonies and chord structures, wrote the majority of the lyrics to Beach Boys' classics such as "Fun, Fun, Fun," "I Get Around," "California Girls," "Good Vibrations," "Darlin'," "Do It Again," "Help Me, Rhonda" -- along with their 1988 Number One comeback hit "Kokomo."

According to many sources, Love openly disdained Wilson's more progressive mid-'60 work -- including 1966's Pet Sounds and its unreleased 1967 follow-up, Smile. Love was reportedly unhappy with Wilson's constant search for new sounds and breaking away from their light and positive teen-based formula.

Love says that since the Beach Boys' Smile album was shelved in 1967 he's unfairly been used as a scapegoat by fans -- and even by Brian Wilson himself -- as the reason the group never completed and released the project: "There was a 'them and us' situation. Brian had some people around him who were feeding him all kinds of drugs, and eventually fed him the wrong amounts of drugs around the (time of the) Smile album -- and he shelved the thing"

Over the years, Love has devoted much of his time -- as well as his money -- to various ecological and spiritual causes, most notably the teachings of Transcendental Meditation, which he studied along with the Beatles in 1968, under the tutelage of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in India.

He says that even now the Maharishi's teachings still hold great significance for him: "You know that I'm a practitioner of Transcendental Meditation -- TM. When the Maharishi first came out teaching TM he said, 'For the forest to be green, every tree must be green.' Real simple things. And if there's going to be world peace, that means the individuals need to feel peaceful from within."

As the '70s progressed, with his cousins each dealing with their various personal and substance abuse issues, Love and Jardine steered the group back into safer waters, focusing on a live act heavily reliant on the band's '60s "sun-n-fun" hits. In the early '90s, Love won a $5 million lawsuit against Brian Wilson, claiming that his name was left off most of the songs he co-wrote with Wilson in the '60s.

Bruce Johnston, the only member of the '60s lineup still performing with Love, says that fans who have pegged Love as a villain over the years don't understand what a positive influence he really was for the band: "They're always angry at Mike Love, you know (and think) all the Wilsons are gods and they're angry at Mike Love. Mike wrote some amazing lyrics that probably paved the way on many levels -- including having enough money to finance Pet Sounds and all kinds of other projects."

Love, who has the exclusive license to use the Beach Boys name, completed a solo album, Unleash The Love, which has remained unreleased since 2005.

The 25th annual Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony will take place tonight (March 15th) at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York City and airs live at 8:30 p.m. ET on Fuse TV. Steven Van Zandt will induct the Hollies, Green Day's Billy Joe Armstrong will do the honors for the Stooges, Phish's Trey Anastasio will induct Genesis, Wyclef Jean will salute Jimmy Cliff, and surviving Bee Gees Barry and Robin Gibb will induct ABBA.

Jackson Browne will honor music mogul David Geffen and Carole King will pay tribute to the 2010 class of songwriters: Barry Mann & Cynthia Weil, Ellie Greenwich & Jeff Barry, Jesse Stone, Mort Shuman, and Otis Blackwell.

This year's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony will feature performances by Ronnie Spector, Eric Burdon, Peter Wolf, Faith Hill, Chris Isaak, Adam Levine and Jesse Carmichael of Maroon 5, Train's Pat Monahan and Fefe Dobson.

Representing the Hollies will be co-founders Graham Nash and Allan Clarke -- along with Nash's replacement Terry Sylvester. Guitarist Tony Hicks and drummer Bobby Elliott, who now lead the band, will miss the ceremony due to concert commitments in the UK.

We asked Nash why he thinks that the Hollies were never able to become an FM-friendly stadium band at the turn of the '60s: "I have a feeling that the reason why it never happened was because I left and they retreated back to 'safety-land.' I wanted at the end of my career with the Hollies, I wanted us to move forward musically and be more adventurous and inventive -- and we showed signs of it. And that was the kind of direction that I wanted to go in for my own self-interests. When I left, I think the Hollies might've retreated back to the safety of great pop songs with great melodies that they used to do previously, even when I was in the band."

Terry Sylvester, who started his career in such Liverpool bands as the Escorts and the Swinging Blue Jeans, replaced Nash in 1968 and stayed on with the Hollies until 1981. We asked him if he's still in touch with the guys these days: "I don't really see much of them; they don't see much of me. We all thankfully own our own masters and we get royalties and we have an accountant who deals with all that. But, not really. I live 3,000 miles away from Tony. It's only Tony and Bob now in the Hollies in England. They tour occasionally."

Although Peter Gabriel will not be attending tonight's ceremony due to rehearsals for his European tour, Tony Banks, Phil Collins, Steve Hackett, and Mike Rutherford will be on hand to accept the award. Tony Banks feels that Peter Gabriel's early over-the-top theatrics played a crucial part in gaining the band the attention they otherwise never would've received: "Well I think the Gabriel thing was very important in the early days, 'cause it gave us an identity and y'know, you kind of stand out from the crowd. There were a lot of other groups who were out there doing the circuit that we were doing. But I think when Peter came on with all his costumes and makeup and everything, it made people remember us and he was a very important part of our thing. And I think we all enjoyed the sort of, the idea of trying to do more than just play music onstage. We were all conscious of the fact that none of us were what you would call typical rock and roll performers -- we didn't. . . play with your teeth and everything, so it was a way of kind of getting around it."

Mike Rutherford is excited at the prospect of Genesis now having a portion of its legendary archives housed at the Cleveland museum: "There was a guy here this last week from New York from the Hall of Fame museum, I think, collecting stuff. Y'know, jackets and old keyboards, my double-neck guitar -- Rickenbacker double-neck -- some old pedals, posters. And it's funny, I found Peter's old leather jacket from the Lamb tour. We have a big barn here by the studio here, a big old barn full of stuff -- old gear, old double-neck guitars and stuff. We clear stuff out but we keep the old stuff, y'know?"

Rutherford is especially proud of being honored in the same class as ABBA:"Well they have ABBA on there who are just amaz -- you just can't not like ABBA, some of those pop songs, y'know what I mean? They're timeless, clever little pieces, I think."

Representing ABBA with be Benny Andersson and his former wife Anni-Frid Lyngstad (pronounced: Anna-Freed Lingstodd). After years of being labeled a "pop" band, Andersson is amazed at the unexpected American honor: "Frida will come to New York on Monday, and so will I. The two of us will be at the Hall of Fame thing. Y'know, I just think it's quite a flabbergasting thing, isn't it? It's like being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame was not on the map, really. And I think we're the only non-Anglo-Saxon act ever to be inducted. I'm not sure, you have to check that -- but I think that's true."

Andersson admits that over 25 years after calling it quits, he's still amazed at the hold ABBA has over its international fan-base: "I think the major thing is that if you're a band and you have a record out and it becomes a hit and you have a next one -- and you do that for nine consecutive years and you have one-or-two major hits around the world -- it's pretty unavoidable to stir up some dust, isn't it? I think that's one of the reasons -- and why it is I don't know. I don't know why. (Laughs) But I'm very grateful that this is the case, y'know?"

Iggy Pop feels that after decades of being treated almost as rock's ugly ducklings, the Stooges have finally been recognized for the influence they've had on future bands and their fans: "I've noticed it and I feel real good about that. I've noticed it coming. These things are sort of nebulous and there's no point in trying to pin 'em down, at least that's not my job. But I can tell you, that I was in a car park the other day and a family approached me. They just walked up to me and y'know, the guy took his hat off and said 'We just wanna thank you.' And then you get 12-year-olds who just found us and like us the best."

Bill Medley remembers after splitting with Phil Spector how he called on legendary husband and wife team Barry Mann & Cynthia Weil to write the followup to the Righteous Brothers' biggest hit: "(You've Lost That) 'Lovin' Feeling' was out and became a big hit record and so we were in rehearsing with Barry and Cynthia in New York (with 'You're My) Soul And Inspiration,' and then maybe Barry and Cynthia and Phil got into a dispute of some sort. It was supposed to be the followup. And then when we separated from Phil, I called Barry and said 'Give us that song!' And I just kind of produced it like, y'know, how Phil would've."